Lady Heather Mills McCartney has been criticised by police for making a "disproportionate" number of 999 calls.

Ch Supt Kevin Moore said there was a danger of further complaints not being taken seriously by his officers.

Mr Moore said it was not his personal view that Lady McCartney was "wasting police time" but Sussex Police did get a high volume of calls from her.

Lady McCartney said: "I didn't waste police time - they encouraged me to use them when I was being harassed."

A spokesman for Lady McCartney said she was nervous after getting death threats and being followed at night.

We are duty-bound to respond

Ch Supt Kevin Moore

Mr Moore said his colleagues had dealt with four emergency calls from Lady McCartney in one 24-hour period.

He said: "We do have to respond to a disproportionate high volume of calls from Heather Mills McCartney because of the situations she finds herself in, and this is regrettable as it takes officers away from other policing matters."

But he added: "I hope my officers treat each call as seriously as they would do for anyone else contacting the police.

Death threats

"We are duty-bound to respond, but clearly people who make lots of calls to police run the risk of being treated as the boy who cried wolf."

The 38-year-old former model, who is divorcing ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, has complained of being followed by photographers near her home in Hove, East Sussex.

I wasn't given any security for me and my daughter so it's rubbish, as most of the stories are